When we think of “automotive artists” illustrators of various types often come to mind. In the past, the Model Car Hall of Fame has honored various painters and digital artists working in 2D media. This year, the award gets a bit more abstract. For pushing the boundaries of “automotive art,” Daniel Arsham is the MCHOF Automotive Artist of the Year for 2024.
Asham works in mixed media, often taking well-known objects, characters, and brands and applying his unique twist to them. In fact, most of his subjects have very little in common until he creates (or de-creates) something new out of them.
Arsham usually starts with a well-known form… a pop culture character, sometimes rendered in a popular collectible shape, and basically destroys them a little bit at a time. In car culture, he creates life-size automobiles, renders them in a single-color flat-finish tone, and then carefully “damages them”. In the end, the cars have pieces broken, worn, or rotted off, revealing the mechanisms that may or may not lie underneath that sheet metal. The result is part engineering, part archaeology, part fantasy. He calls the effect “erosion.”
He has created several exhibitions of life-size cars, such as Porsches, and also works in miniature. His Hot Wheels x Arsham designs combine popular Hot Wheels models such as the Twin Mill, in miniature. Mind you, these are not the $1 items you will find on the pegs. The Hot Wheels® x Daniel Arsham Legends Archive Car Collection and Rally Case retails for around $700 including several classic models and the original Rally Case all eroded like ancient sculptures. Amazingly, he gets full cooperation with the companies whose products he damages for art.
It’s almost like he is giving you a chance to own well-worn original toys if you missed the opportunity to bury your own diecast cars in the sandbox and somehow manage to keep them all these years. for extending the definition of diecast collectibles to new areas, Daniel Arsham is the 2024 Model Car Hall of Fame Automotive Artist of the Year.
The Model Car Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony was held at the International Toy Fair in Nuremberg, Germany, on January 30, 2025. Thanks to everyone at Spielwarenmesse for having us as a part of their event.
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